vice president biden in detroit at a labor day rally organized by the afl-cio, all of this leading up to the democrats' big convention getting underway tomorrow in charlotte, north carolina. carl cameron is 230 miles east of charlotte live in greenville where the republican vice vice presidential candidate paul ryan is holding a rally. is this ryan sort of bracketing the democrats? >> reporter: leading the charge, in fact. and the barbecue's good in greenville too, jon. jon: probably better. >> reporter: paul ryan will be at the head of the parade for the republicans as they try to set about this entire week trying to wrack, as they say -- bracket, but it really means undercut what democrats are doing in charlotte. mr. ryan will seize on the question yesterday, they haven't quite figured out what the democrats' message is when asked if if the country's better off than it was four years ago. initially, a top democratic surrogate said, well, no, and now the obama campaign is very aggressively trying to turn that around and say by any measure, the economy is better. republicans in turn j